*Received for publication August 15, 1960.From the Arthritis Section, Department of Medicine, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.†Trainee, National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases, USPHS.‡Chief, Arthritis Section, Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.Requests for reprints should be addressed to Daniel J. McCarty, M.D., Department of Medicine, Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital, 230 N. Broad Street, Philadelphia 2, Pa.

Abstract

Urate crystals have been noted in synovial fluid from gouty patients in the past, but this finding was believed to be infrequent and of little assistance to the clinician in his attempt to establish a diagnosis.1 Recently one of us2 reported that eight of 17 fluids from the affected joints of patients with clinical gout contained crystals seen by ordinary light microscopy, and in several of these cases the diagnosis of gout was first established on the basis of this finding.2 It was noted that urate crystals in joint fluid were often short and rod-shaped, with rounded ends and parallel